American Police Officers
Does knowing who they are help explain why they kill Blacks?
Abstract
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Over the last several years, the killing of Blacks by white police officers in America has drawn a great deal of attention from many sectors in society. A number of cases involving police murder of Blacks have been captured on video and broadcast around the world, giving the issue more international attention than it has ever before garnered. In this article, the authors use data gleaned from an elaborate survey given to a group of newly minted police officers who are employed in a police department that has a history of policing Blacks more harshly than any other race of people. The police department is located in a major city in the midwestern region of the United States. The more than fifty police officers in the study are an accurate reflection of the socio-economic makeup of the city, thus making for some promising insights. It is the authors hope that the data will help explain why white police officers kill Blacks at the rate at which they do.
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